Im new to EF6 and facing the following issue:
If I add my model via db.Modelclass.Add( model )-method and save the changes to the db new entities will be created in the tables Tours and ToursEmployees like it should for the model, but also in my parent table Employees. Last one is my use in the code below.
I already read this article about the issue https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dn166926.aspx but in my case I dont know what to do, cause Im dealing with a many-to-many realtionship. I used code first and marked the artibutes in the models via virtual as navigation properties, so the framework created me a join table.
Whats the right way to use the framework for this kinda relaltionships, maybe creating a model for the joined table and then using the FK described in the article?
public ActionResult Create(TourViewModel tourVM) {
if (ModelState.IsValid) {
Tour tour = new Tour() {
Tourname = tourVM.Tourname,
Tourdate = tourVM.Tourdate,
VehicleId = tourVM.VehicleId
,Employees = new List<Employee>()
};
for (var i = 0; i < tourVM.Employees.Count; i++)
if (tourVM.Employees[i].Assigned)
tour.Employees.Add(
new Employee() { EmployeeId = tourVM.Employees[i].EmployeeId }
);
db.Tours.Add(tour);
db.SaveChanges();
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
return View(tourVM);
}
I believe this is happening because you are adding the employees to the list that are not bound to the data context. Doing something like the below should work and correctly bind them to the data context object.
public ActionResult Create(TourViewModel tourVM) {
if (ModelState.IsValid) {
Tour tour = new Tour() {
Tourname = tourVM.Tourname,
Tourdate = tourVM.Tourdate,
VehicleId = tourVM.VehicleId,
Employees = new List<Employee>()
};
var IDs = tourVM.Employees.Where(e => e.Assigned).Select(e => e.EmployeeId);
var Employees = db.Employees.Where(e => IDs.Contains(e.EmployeeId)).ToList();
tour.Employees.AddRange(Employees);
db.Tours.Add(tour);
db.SaveChanges();
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
return View(tourVM);
}
I'm using Filehelpers to parse a very wide, fixed format file and want to be able to take the resulting object and load it into a DB using EF. I'm getting a missing key error when I try to load the object into the DB and when I try and add an Id I get a Filehelpers error. So it seems like either fix breaks the other. I know I can map a Filehelpers object to a POCO object and load that but I'm dealing with dozens (sometimes hundreds of columns) so I would rather not have to go through that hassle.
I'm also open to other suggestions for parsing a fixed width file and loading the results into a DB. One option of course is to use an ETL tool but I'd rather do this in code.
Thanks!
This is the FileHelpers class:
public class AccountBalanceDetail
{
[FieldHidden]
public int Id; // Added to try and get EF to work
[FieldFixedLength(1)]
public string RecordNuber;
[FieldFixedLength(3)]
public string Branch;
// Additional fields below
}
And this is the method that's processing the file:
public static bool ProcessFile()
{
var dir = Properties.Settings.Default.DataDirectory;
var engine = new MultiRecordEngine(typeof(AccountBalanceHeader), typeof(AccountBalanceDetail), typeof(AccountBalanceTrailer));
engine.RecordSelector = new RecordTypeSelector(CustomSelector);
var fileName = dir + "\\MOCK_ACCTBAL_L1500.txt";
var res = engine.ReadFile(fileName);
foreach (var rec in res)
{
var type = rec.GetType();
if (type.Name == "AccountBalanceHeader") continue;
if (type.Name == "AccountBalanceTrailer") continue;
var data = rec as AccountBalanceDetail; // Throws an error if AccountBalanceDetail.Id has a getter and setter
using (var ctx = new ApplicationDbContext())
{
// Throws an error if there is no valid Id on AccountBalanceDetail
// EntityType 'AccountBalanceDetail' has no key defined. Define the key for this EntityType.
ctx.AccountBalanceDetails.Add(data);
ctx.SaveChanges();
}
//Console.WriteLine(rec.ToString());
}
return true;
}
Entity Framework needs the key to be a property, not a field, so you could try declaring it instead as:
public int Id {get; set;}
I suspect FileHelpers might well be confused by the autogenerated backing field, so you might need to do it long form in order to be able to mark the backing field with the [FieldHidden] attribute, i.e.,
[FieldHidden]
private int _Id;
public int Id
{
get { return _Id; }
set { _Id = value; }
}
However, you are trying to use the same class for two unrelated purposes and this is generally bad design. On the one hand AccountBalanceDetail is the spec for the import format. On the other you are also trying to use it to describe the Entity. Instead you should create separate classes and map between the two with a LINQ function or a library like AutoMapper.
I was told to use automapper in the code below. I cannot get clarification for reasons that are too lengthy to go into. What object am I supposed to be mapping to what object? I don't see a "source" object, since the source is the database...
Would really appreciate any help on how to do this with automapper. Note, the actual fields are irrelevant, I need help with the general concept. I do understand how mapping works when mapping from one object to another.
public IQueryable<Object> ReturnDetailedSummaries(long orgId)
{
var summaries = from s in db.ReportSummaries
where s.OrganizationId == orgId
select new SummaryViewModel
{
Id = s.Id,
Name = s.Name,
AuditLocationId = s.AuditLocationId,
AuditLocationName = s.Location.Name,
CreatedOn = s.CreatedOn,
CreatedById = s.CreatedById,
CreatedByName = s.User.Name,
OfficeId = s.OfficeId,
OfficeName = s.Office.Name,
OrganizationId = s.OrganizationId,
OrganizationName = s.Organization.Name,
IsCompleted = s.IsCompleted,
isHidden = s.isHidden,
numberOfItemsInAuditLocations = s.numberOfItemsInAuditLocations,
numberOfLocationsScanned = s.numberOfLocationsScanned,
numberOfItemsScanned = s.numberOfItemsScanned,
numberofDiscrepanciesFound = s.numberofDiscrepanciesFound
};
return summaries;
}
It is a handy and a timesaver, especially if you use a one to one naming between translations layers. Here is how I use it.
For single item
public Domain.Data.User GetUserByUserName(string userName)
{
Mapper.CreateMap<User, Domain.Data.User>();
return (
from s in _dataContext.Users
where s.UserName==userName
select Mapper.Map<User, Domain.Data.User>(s)
).SingleOrDefault();
}
Multiple Items
public List<Domain.Data.User> GetUsersByProvider(int providerID)
{
Mapper.CreateMap<User, Domain.Data.User>();
return (
from s in _dataContext.Users
where s.ProviderID== providerID
select Mapper.Map<User, Domain.Data.User>(s)
).ToList();
}
It looks like you already have a model? SummaryViewModel?
If this isn't the DTO, then presumably you want to do:
Mapper.CreateMap<SummaryViewModel, SummaryViewModelDto>();
SummaryViewModelDto summaryViewModelDto =
Mapper.Map<SummaryViewModel, SummaryViewModelDto>(summaryViewModel);
AutoMapper will copy fields from one object to another, to save you having to do it all manually.
See https://github.com/AutoMapper/AutoMapper/wiki/Getting-started
The source is your entity class ReportSummary, the target is SummaryViewModel:
Mapper.CreateMap<ReportSummary, SummaryViewModel>();
The best way to use AutoMapper in combination with an IQueryable data source is through the Project.To API:
var summaries = db.ReportSummaries.Where(s => s.OrganizationId == orgId)
.Project().To<SummaryViewModel>();
Project.To translates the properties in the target model straight to the selected columns in the generated SQL.
Mapper.Map, on the other hand, only works on in-memory collections, so you can only use it when you first fetch complete ReportSummary objects from the database. (In this case there may not be much of a difference, but in other cases it can be substantial).
I am using Breeze.js with Entity Framework WebAPI backend, and I need to delete a large set of data that is not loaded to client. I would really like to do it on the server and not load it.
Is there a "breeze way"? By that I mean a method in a BreezeController.
EDIT
I have to delete all rows from one table that belong to the user, whose date field is in future, and all their child rows.
public override int SaveChanges()
{
foreach (
var entry in
this.ChangeTracker.Entries()
.Where((e => (e.State == (EntityState) Breeze.WebApi.EntityState.Deleted))))
{
if (entry.Entity.GetType() == typeof(User))
{
var entity = entry.Entity as User;
var childEntitiesInFuture = ChildEntities.Where(c => c.DateField > DateTime.Now);
foreach (var child in childEntitiesInFuture){
var grandchildrenForDeletion = Grandchildren.Where(c => c.ChildId == child.Id);
foreach (var g in grandchildrenForDeletion) Grandchildren.Remove(g);
ChildEntities.Remove(child);
}
}
}
}
Assuming you are deleting User, one User has many ChildEntity saved in ChildEntities and each ChildEntity has many Grandchild saved in Grandchildren. A bit messy names, but that's what you get with no real names :)
This method goes into your Context class. Good luck.
I have a tree structure in the DB with TreeNodes table. the table has nodeId, parentId and parameterId. in the EF, The structure is like TreeNode.Children where each child is a TreeNode...
I also have a Tree table with contain id,name and rootNodeId.
At the end of the day I would like to load the tree into a TreeView but I can't figure how to load it all at once.
I tried:
var trees = from t in context.TreeSet.Include("Root").Include("Root.Children").Include("Root.Children.Parameter")
.Include("Root.Children.Children")
where t.ID == id
select t;
This will get me the the first 2 generations but not more.
How do I load the entire tree with all generations and the additional data?
I had this problem recently and stumbled across this question after I figured a simple way to achieve results. I provided an edit to Craig's answer providing a 4th method, but the powers-that-be decided it should be another answer. That's fine with me :)
My original question / answer can be found here.
This works so long as your items in the table all know which tree they belong to (which in your case it looks like they do: t.ID). That said, it's not clear what entities you really have in play, but even if you've got more than one, you must have a FK in the entity Children if that's not a TreeSet
Basically, just don't use Include():
var query = from t in context.TreeSet
where t.ID == id
select t;
// if TreeSet.Children is a different entity:
var query = from c in context.TreeSetChildren
// guessing the FK property TreeSetID
where c.TreeSetID == id
select c;
This will bring back ALL the items for the tree and put them all in the root of the collection. At this point, your result set will look like this:
-- Item1
-- Item2
-- Item3
-- Item4
-- Item5
-- Item2
-- Item3
-- Item5
Since you probably want your entities coming out of EF only hierarchically, this isn't what you want, right?
.. then, exclude descendants present at the root level:
Fortunately, because you have navigation properties in your model, the child entity collections will still be populated as you can see by the illustration of the result set above. By manually iterating over the result set with a foreach() loop, and adding those root items to a new List<TreeSet>(), you will now have a list with root elements and all descendants properly nested.
If your trees get large and performance is a concern, you can sort your return set ASCENDING by ParentID (it's Nullable, right?) so that all the root items are first. Iterate and add as before, but break from the loop once you get to one that is not null.
var subset = query
// execute the query against the DB
.ToList()
// filter out non-root-items
.Where(x => !x.ParentId.HasValue);
And now subset will look like this:
-- Item1
-- Item2
-- Item3
-- Item4
-- Item5
About Craig's solutions:
You really don't want to use lazy loading for this!! A design built around the necessity for n+1 querying will be a major performance sucker. ********* (Well, to be fair, if you're going to allow a user to selectively drill down the tree, then it could be appropriate. Just don't use lazy loading for getting them all up-front!!)I've never tried the nested set stuff, and I wouldn't suggest hacking EF configuration to make this work either, given there is a far easier solution. Another reasonable suggestion is creating a database view that provides the self-linking, then map that view to an intermediary join/link/m2m table. Personally, I found this solution to be more complicated than necessary, but it probably has its uses.
When you use Include(), you are asking the Entity Framework to translate your query into SQL. So think: How would you write an SQL statement which returns a tree of an arbitrary depth?
Answer: Unless you are using specific hierarchy features of your database server (which are not SQL standard, but supported by some servers, such as SQL Server 2008, though not by its Entity Framework provider), you wouldn't. The usual way to handle trees of arbitrary depth in SQL is to use the nested sets model rather than the parent ID model.
Therefore, there are three ways which you can use to solve this problem:
Use the nested sets model. This requires changing your metadata.
Use SQL Server's hierarchy features, and hack the Entity Framework into understanding them (tricky, but this technique might work). Again, you'll need to change your metadata.i
Use explicit loading or EF 4's lazy loading instead of eager loading. This will result in many database queries instead of one.
I wanted to post up my answer since the others didn't help me.
My database is a little different, basically my table has an ID and a ParentID. The table is recursive. The following code gets all children and nests them into a final list.
public IEnumerable<Models.MCMessageCenterThread> GetAllMessageCenterThreads(int msgCtrId)
{
var z = Db.MCMessageThreads.Where(t => t.ID == msgCtrId)
.Select(t => new MCMessageCenterThread
{
Id = t.ID,
ParentId = t.ParentID ?? 0,
Title = t.Title,
Body = t.Body
}).ToList();
foreach (var t in z)
{
t.Children = GetChildrenByParentId(t.Id);
}
return z;
}
private IEnumerable<MCMessageCenterThread> GetChildrenByParentId(int parentId)
{
var children = new List<MCMessageCenterThread>();
var threads = Db.MCMessageThreads.Where(x => x.ParentID == parentId);
foreach (var t in threads)
{
var thread = new MCMessageCenterThread
{
Id = t.ID,
ParentId = t.ParentID ?? 0,
Title = t.Title,
Body = t.Body,
Children = GetChildrenByParentId(t.ID)
};
children.Add(thread);
}
return children;
}
For completeness, here's my model:
public class MCMessageCenterThread
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public int ParentId { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Body { get; set; }
public IEnumerable<MCMessageCenterThread> Children { get; set; }
}
I wrote something recently that does N+1 selects to load the whole tree, where N is the number of levels of your deepest path in the source object.
This is what I did, given the following self-referencing class
public class SomeEntity
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public int? ParentId { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set;
}
I wrote the following DbSet helper
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Linq.Expressions;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore
{
public static class DbSetExtensions
{
public static async Task<TEntity[]> FindRecursiveAsync<TEntity, TKey>(
this DbSet<TEntity> source,
Expression<Func<TEntity, bool>> rootSelector,
Func<TEntity, TKey> getEntityKey,
Func<TEntity, TKey> getChildKeyToParent)
where TEntity: class
{
// Keeps a track of already processed, so as not to invoke
// an infinte recursion
var alreadyProcessed = new HashSet<TKey>();
TEntity[] result = await source.Where(rootSelector).ToArrayAsync();
TEntity[] currentRoots = result;
while (currentRoots.Length > 0)
{
TKey[] currentParentKeys = currentRoots.Select(getEntityKey).Except(alreadyProcessed).ToArray();
alreadyProcessed.AddRange(currentParentKeys);
Expression<Func<TEntity, bool>> childPredicate = x => currentParentKeys.Contains(getChildKeyToParent(x));
currentRoots = await source.Where(childPredicate).ToArrayAsync();
}
return result;
}
}
}
Whenever you need to load a whole tree you simply call this method, passing in three things
The selection criteria for your root objects
How to get the property for the primary key of the object (SomeEntity.Id)
How to get the child's property that refers to its parent (SomeEntity.ParentId)
For example
SomeEntity[] myEntities = await DataContext.SomeEntity.FindRecursiveAsync(
rootSelector: x => x.Id = 42,
getEntityKey: x => x.Id,
getChildKeyToParent: x => x.ParentId).ToArrayAsync();
);
Alternatively, if you can add a RootId column to the table then for each non-root entry you can set this column to the ID of the root of the tree. Then you can fetch everything with a single select
DataContext.SomeEntity.Where(x => x.Id == rootId || x.RootId == rootId)
For an example of loading in child objects, I'll give the example of a Comment object that holds a comment. Each comment has a possible child comment.
private static void LoadComments(<yourObject> q, Context yourContext)
{
if(null == q | null == yourContext)
{
return;
}
yourContext.Entry(q).Reference(x=> x.Comment).Load();
Comment curComment = q.Comment;
while(null != curComment)
{
curComment = LoadChildComment(curComment, yourContext);
}
}
private static Comment LoadChildComment(Comment c, Context yourContext)
{
if(null == c | null == yourContext)
{
return null;
}
yourContext.Entry(c).Reference(x=>x.ChildComment).Load();
return c.ChildComment;
}
Now if you were having something that has collections of itself you would need to use Collection instead of Reference and do the same sort of diving down. At least that's the approach I took in this scenario as we were dealing with Entity and SQLite.
This is an old question, but the other answers either had n+1 database hits or their models were conducive to bottom-up (trunk to leaves) approaches. In this scenario, a tag list is loaded as a tree, and a tag can have multiple parents. The approach I use only has two database hits: the first to get the tags for the selected articles, then another that eager loads a join table. Thus, this uses a top-down (leaves to trunk) approach; if your join table is large or if the result cannot really be cached for reuse, then eager loading the whole thing starts to show the tradeoffs with this approach.
To begin, I initialize two HashSets: one to hold the root nodes (the resultset), and another to keep a reference to each node that has been "hit."
var roots = new HashSet<AncestralTagDto>(); //no parents
var allTags = new HashSet<AncestralTagDto>();
Next, I grab all of the leaves that the client requested, placing them into an object that holds a collection of children (but that collection will remain empty after this step).
var startingTags = await _dataContext.ArticlesTags
.Include(p => p.Tag.Parents)
.Where(t => t.Article.CategoryId == categoryId)
.GroupBy(t => t.Tag)
.ToListAsync()
.ContinueWith(resultTask =>
resultTask.Result.Select(
grouping => new AncestralTagDto(
grouping.Key.Id,
grouping.Key.Name)));
Now, let's grab the tag self-join table, and load it all into memory:
var tagRelations = await _dataContext.TagsTags.Include(p => p.ParentTag).ToListAsync();
Now, for each tag in startingTags, add that tag to the allTags collection, then travel down the tree to get the ancestors recursively:
foreach (var tag in startingTags)
{
allTags.Add(tag);
GetParents(tag);
}
return roots;
Lastly, here's the nested recursive method that builds the tree:
void GetParents(AncestralTagDto tag)
{
var parents = tagRelations.Where(c => c.ChildTagId == tag.Id).Select(p => p.ParentTag);
if (parents.Any()) //then it's not a root tag; keep climbing down
{
foreach (var parent in parents)
{
//have we already seen this parent tag before? If not, instantiate the dto.
var parentDto = allTags.SingleOrDefault(i => i.Id == parent.Id);
if (parentDto is null)
{
parentDto = new AncestralTagDto(parent.Id, parent.Name);
allTags.Add(parentDto);
}
parentDto.Children.Add(tag);
GetParents(parentDto);
}
}
else //the tag is a root tag, and should be in the root collection. If it's not in there, add it.
{
//this block could be simplified to just roots.Add(tag), but it's left this way for other logic.
var existingRoot = roots.SingleOrDefault(i => i.Equals(tag));
if (existingRoot is null)
roots.Add(tag);
}
}
Under the covers, I am relying on the properties of a HashSet to prevent duplicates. To that end, it's important that the intermediate object that you use (I used AncestralTagDto here, and its Children collection is also a HashSet), override the Equals and GetHashCode methods as appropriate for your use-case.